


The Sun, Radiant

by likelolwhat



Series: Runaway Tales Works [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Community: runaway_tales, Diplomacy, F/M, Fantasy, Female Character In Command, Female Regent, Gen, In a Platonic Way - usually, Non-Magical Fantasy, Royalty, Threesome - F/M/M, Treachery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelolwhat/pseuds/likelolwhat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The generations-long war between the kingdoms of Fallstar and Arambh has finally ended peacefully. However, when the western king visits his eastern counterpart as a gesture of faith he discovers the feud, though over on paper, may never be gone from the minds and hearts of some.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written as a series of shorts and drabbles on the livejournal origfic prompt community runaway_tales.

“You come alone,” she said, still gazing upon her royal ancestor. “And unarmed, yes? You have… confidence.”  
  
“That would depend on what you mean by ‘confidence’,” he replied carefully, stopping at a respectable distance. Every statue in the hall seemed to be staring right at him — a design feature to unnerve thieves sneaking to the treasury? — except for one, the one his Arambhi counterpart studied.  
  
Queen Ruhana of Arambh tilted her head, still not turning. “Even in the immortality of stone, Rajshani kneels to all who pass.” Now she twisted to him, studying  _him_.  
  
“How did you know I was unarmed?” It was the wrong question, but he could not take it back. The other could wait.  
  
Her lips, full and painted black, pulled to the left as if she was hiding a smile. Something lesser men would miss, but he had not claimed the throne with charisma and war tactics. “The footsteps of an armed man are surer.”  
  
He knew it was true, at least generally, but he could not shake the feeling — perhaps it was paranoia — that the Arambhi queen was mocking him. “Are my footsteps not sure?”  
  
“Of course they are. You walk as any of my forefathers, and they were swaddled in power from the womb. I mean that one foot is surer than the other. It is all relative, in any case. Come, will you walk with me? I am most curious about the westland, and I know any relationship between kingdoms begins at the personal level of the regents. That is, us.”  
  
He nodded, falling into step with her, this mysterious queen of a land his people had warred with for generations long gone. She pointed out each statue, most of men in heroic poses, reciting each name and deed though there were no placards, no words carved into the stone that he could see. He found the people of Arambh — or at least  _her_ — did not deify their dead kings as his did; they did not even speak well of them in many cases. Here was Versk, whose greatest accomplishment was getting stabbed by a mistress, surviving, and dying by the poison-pouring hand of another a week later; here was Surashmibi, a thief before he was king; here was Valaysha, who executed any pretty girl she saw and bathed in their blood—  
  
“And here is my song, yet to be sung,” Ruhana said quietly as the rows of statues ended, stopping before an empty pedestal. He almost didn’t notice it, between a large statue of a snarling man in full royal regalia and the wall as it was. “It will be made when I die, as is tradition.”  
  
He knew was she was doing, then. She was teaching him that, while her royal ancestors’ legacy had been not all that encouraging for a diplomatic relationship between Arambh and Fallstar, she at least  _knew_ it and was willing to start over.  
  
“Majesty,” he said, letting his tone carry the double meaning.


	2. Something Turning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A king and a queen meet again.

He was different, this westlander. A large man, though not as large as some in his entourage; a listener and watcher; and blue eyed! Blue eyes, the rarest color among the Arambhi people. Green eyes ran in my family — it was considered in some, far-flung places of the kingdom to be “the royal sign”, even moreso than the Peacock Crown of my forefathers. (I wasn’t wearing it now, of course; it was for court and public appearances, and too heavy for a walk in the gardens with Fallstar’s king. But the green eyes, those I would never be able to leave in the treasury.)  
  
I hurried down the hall towards the gardens, Ravir padding, silently as always, behind. My guard-consort’s presence was as palpable as the heat, and I doubted I would have been able to give him the slip as I had the night before when I met with King Gavin in the Hall of the Sun. Ravir disapproved, I knew, but it was not like I was in danger. And Gavin wouldn’t reveal it any more than I would — he had confided that his council ( _such a concept!_ ) was clamoring for him to choose a bride from the nobility of Fallstar. A secret meeting with a foreign, unmarried queen, no matter how innocuous, would jeopardize the entire point of the royal visit: a peace agreement. Never mind that I was, at least in my culture, already wed. Twice. But the taking of  _two consorts_ , to the westlanders? Scandalous.  
  
So many things, scandalous to them. Our mass funeral-celebrations, our practical dress (wear cloaks or heavy cloth in this heat? Ha!), even how we remembered our ancestors as they  _were_.  
  
I stepped outside, where it was just as hot, staying under the second-floor balconies. The pillars had symbols of protection, longevity and more carved into the marble by skilled hands; these carvings had existed since the capital had moved four hundred years ago and the palace itself was built. Touched by many hands over these years, the carvings had smoothed so they were barely visible. I stopped at the eighth pillar, just before the turn to the gardens, and said a quick prayer before the carving of the waxing half-moon for luck. Even that was different — in Fallstar, my advisors said, supplicants knelt and stayed silent for hours at a time before abstract sculptures. Here in Arambh, all the possible things one could pray for were carved into pillars, most of which were in the city square, although totems specific to each family decorated every home as well. Stores had totems of the hare, symbols of prosperity, and others depending on their trade; here in the palace the dominant symbol was the sun, as it was on the royal crest and seal. We touched the symbols for their power, or bowed our heads before them. Our prayers were quick and to the point. Only the great masters of the spirit-arts spent any amount of time on prayers or meditations.  
  
The more I thought about them, the more our differences seemed insurmountable.  
  
Another few steps, then I emerged from the shade into the verdant lushness of the palace gardens. Gavin (I thought of him by his name though I did not yet call him by it, not in private and certainly not in public) stood by the fountain, watching the water trickle down the petals of the giant stone lotus that formed the centerpiece. A few paces away, a guard in Fallstar’s colors sweltered in his heavy breastplate even while scanning the area for threats.  
  
The guard alerted first to my approach. Good, he was competent, at least in that department. I could nearly  _feel_  Ravir scrutinizing his counterpart, and Gavin whom he had met only briefly. I doubted the king knew my first consort doubled as my guard. At the ceremonial meeting on the palace steps, when I formally greeted the Fallstar delegation, Ravir had been firmly in the consort role.  
  
Gavin turned, then, and his eyes alighted on me. I suddenly was conscious of the way the flowing white silks would look to him against my darker skin, but I resisted the urge to adjust them or fidget.  
  
He smiled, and it reached his eyes. I breathed a bit easier. He glanced at the ornate dagger on my hip, but said nothing.  
  
“It is mostly ceremonial. Since my coronation I have not needed it, though I still practice the bow on occasion, to stay sharp,” I said. “Good afternoon, King Gavin.”  
  
“Queen Ruhana. The bow? That is a fine weapon,” he replied, though by then he had spotted Ravir and started. I had been correct; he was surprised to find the man who’d previously been in silks and jewels now dressed like an ordinary palace guard (though without the cap and standard-issue sword — he wore no weapons at all, which I’m sure confused Gavin further).  
  
“Ravir, First Consort of Arambh,” I said, gesturing.  
  
Ravir grinned. “I like to stay busy.” He was scanning the parapet in the distance, no doubt looking for assassins, while his Fallstar counterpart searched the palace windows.  
  
“Hmm. Pardon me,” Gavin said shortly, then addressed the guard in exasperation. “Matthew, you’re sweating like a pig. Go change.”  
  
“But—” Matthew cut himself off, blushing.  
  
“Go. I’ll be fine.”  
  
He could not disobey, though his face said he desperately wanted to, and not because we were in the open.  _Touched by the war_ , I thought. He left with a bow, straight-backed and close to running.  
  
Gavin grimaced. “Apologies, good lady. He is distrustful.”  
  
“It is no issue. I understand that the rift between our nations will not be so easily closed.”  
  
“I agree—” Gavin’s eyes slid away from me, over my left shoulder where I knew Ravir was.  
  
Ravir darted forward just as I turned my head, tugging me back by the arm as a flash of metal whistled down from the palace wall.  
  
But I was not the target. Ravir let go, and I stumbled back by my momentum, my sandals snagging on the edge of my dress and sending me crashing to the ground. Gavin, oh, he was sinking to his knees, scrabbling at his back where a throwing knife was lodged.  
  
I scrambled forward on my hands and knees, tearing off a strip of silk and wrapping it around the knife handle where it stuck out, trying to stop the blood leaking out. Gavin was in finery, but no breastplate, and the cloth was not thick enough to stop the whole blade from burying itself.  
  
I saw Ravir out of the corner of my eye, standing by us and looking like he didn’t know whether to go after the assassin or remain with his queen. “Go, love!” I yelled, hearing the clamor of the guard arriving on the scene and knowing Ravir would be the only one fast enough to catch the attacker, even if he had run before the blade landed.  
  
He nodded and was off, dashing across the stone work straight for the wall. He didn’t bother with the stairs, tearing off his gauntlets mid-step and launching himself at the stone, scrambling up the sheer face with all the agility of a monkey and more. Slim but strong fingers found purchase between the tight bricks as easily as climbing a ladder. Then he was over the top and gone, following a trail only he could see.  
  
The guards arrived, from both nations, including Matthew whose face was ashen green. They carried Gavin away to the healers, and insisted I come as well though I was sure I was fine, just shaken.  
  
Such a brazen attack could only have been my sister’s doing.


	3. After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A king recovers, a queen frets, and the First Consort hunts his prey.

Mesvati stood over the sink, running the medical instruments under the cool waters to get as much of the blood off as she could before they would go in the boiling pot to clean. The Fallstar king bled more than she’d seen anyone bleed before, so much that he should’ve been dead twice over. But, somehow, he’d been at Death’s door, knocked, and still managed to escape before he crossed the threshold.  
  
“Girl,” called the senior healer, and she laid the instruments aside to help change the bandages. Matthew breathed down their necks; he’d been on constant watch for days.  
  
~☼~  
  
Gavin was stable, but still unconscious. The best healers in the city worked day and night while he battled the wound, and I slept for an hour here, two there during this time while my agents gathered the information I needed and I desperately tried to avoid an international incident. Ravir hadn’t returned, compounding my worry. Of course he was fine, I told myself. He wasn’t my guard-consort for nothing.  
  
Just like my sister to strike at me indirectly. Just like my sister to use a poisoned knife.  
  
Her crusade had been festering too long.  
  
Time to end it.  
  
~☼~  
  
You’ve been running for hours. Though he has not caught you yet, you swear you can see the lithe figure flitting through the trees; sometimes behind, sometimes to the side as you dart through the underbrush. He has you, you know, and you will not survive this if you are lucky, but the stink of fear is all around you, and you keep running. Your muscles throb and burn like the wound you delivered to the western king must have; the scratches on your face and the tears in your eyes blur your vision. You are  _dead_. You know it.


	4. The Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pursuing a would-be killer.

He ran, the fool. Perhaps Ravir would have shown him some mercy if he had not been a coward. A knife in the back — poisoned, no doubt, as well — was bad enough, but the assassin knew he was caught and kept running. An animal, eyes rolled back in its head as the hunter pursued. Fear rolled off him in waves.  
  
Ravir tasted that fear, and, knew he could indulge a bit. He knew this area well. The forests extended all the way to the ocean, and he was not yet tired.  
  
Space and time enough to teach the true meaning of terror.  
  
He darted left, sped up just enough that he pulled alongside the assassin, whose inexperience showed in every stumble in more ways than one. He let the man-animal see him in the corner of his eye, watched the head turn and the eyes widen even farther. He saw the tears and blood blurred in them, and smiled. The forest had scratched the assassin pelting madly through it. He was half-blind, and still he ran.  
  
Fool.  
  
Suddenly, Ravir tired of the game. He fell back slightly, let his prey have some space, returned to following behind. And waited for his opportunity. It was coming up here soon…  
  
The assassin did not even have the chance to scream as the ground betrayed him and he was sucked up to his waist in the Lalit Bog.  
  
Ravir slowed to a walk and finally stopped at the very edge, ready to jump back if the telltale groaning noise came from below him, signaling the bog was eating the solid earth at his feet. “Well now,” he said to the assassin. “Don’t struggle. I’d hate to have to fish you out when its up to your neck or further.”  
  
His prey said nothing, but wiggled a bit. Just to be contrary, Ravir supposed. He stopped that right quick when the bog made a mighty squelch and sucked him under a few more inches.  
  
“Then again, the bog has a way of taking the fight out of people.”  
  
“Fuck you,” the man growled.  
  
Ravir grinned. “Well, lucky for you I’m tired now and would really like to go home. Unlucky for you, I’m letting you live a while longer.” His hand flashed out, pinching the assassin on the juncture of neck and shoulder, where the most convenient pressure point was. The man’s gasp cut off as the paralysis kicked in, and he flopped back into the bog. Ravir caught him by the neck and, ignoring his muffled groans of protest, hauled him out. The bog gave up its meal easily enough. Ravir bound the the muddy man’s hands behind him, then bound his ankles to them, making his prey much easier to control once the paralysis wore off.  
  
Divesting him of his remaining weapons, Ravir tucked him under his arm and began the walk home.


	5. She Shall Be Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A queen’s vulnerability.

Vasyasa woke to the feeling of the sheets sliding on his arms. Instantly he was on alert, listening for any threat to his queen. But he heard no intruder, just the sigh of the bed as Ruhana set her feet on the floor and got up. He hazarded to open his eyes, seeing the moonlight through the sheer curtains dancing on her skin as she stood there, naked and beautiful, in the royal bedchamber. It was easy to forget that she was a queen and not a goddess sometimes, he thought, and he was possibly the second luckiest man upon the great earth. Ravir claiming the top spot, of course.  
  
For the thousandth time in three days he wondered after his fellow consort; where was he? Ravir on the hunt was no one to be trifled with, as Vasyaza well knew, but three days was a long time to be chasing after an assassin, especially one that used poison and was almost certainly in the employ of ex-High Princess Jalenashi.  
  
Ruhana’s sister, the source of so many troubles for the queen and Arambh as a whole. The disgraced former heir still ravenous for her birth-promise: the throne. Vasyasa had never met the state’s greatest enemy, having been chosen as consort after Ruhana was firmly queen and Jalenashi run to ground, but the gossip he had heard... Ravir was said to have become First Consort during the tumultuous few months when they were actively warring, but he refused to talk about that time.  
  
The queen sighed and stepped lightly across the mahogany floor. Vasyasa dipped his eyes to peek out his eyelashes, curious as to what she was doing. She knelt by the wall, fiddling with something down low he could not see clearly in the shadow of the wardrobe. There was a slight  _click_  and Vasyasa opened his eyes fully as a panel in the baseboard came loose and the queen popped it off, revealing a hole in the wall. He couldn’t see what was inside, but she had obviously hidden something there, reaching in gingerly and feeling around.  
  
After a moment, she withdrew a small, ornate jewelry box, of the same kind as the one that sat on the vanity. She set the panel back in place and rose gracefully, holding the box as if it held the answers to all the great problems. It couldn’t, he knew, but he thought he might know what it  _did_  hold. His queen lifted the lid an inch, let it back down with a sigh.  
  
“Vas?” Ruhana turned back with her prize but stopped when she saw him laying there with eyes open, her voice startled but low enough that the guards posted outside would not hear unless they were pressed up against the door.  
  
The Second Consort slowly sat up, bunching the sheets — it was a hot night, they almost could go without those too — around his waist and rubbing at an eye.  
  
“Vas, I…” She sounded guilty, a thoroughly alien emotion for him to see in her.  
  
He needed to reassure her. “It’s alright. If you want me to go back to sleep I will.”  
  
She nodded, but still stood there. For a long moment he just looked at her, and she at him. Finally, she came back to bed, carrying the box with her. She sat at the edge and swung her long legs over, sitting next to him with the box in her lap. “I shouldn’t have hidden it for so long,” she said, almost to herself. “Ravir knows, but then he knows a lot of things I don’t want him to.”  
  
A twinge of jealousy, but it faded as quickly as it came. Vasyasa said nothing, watching her hands fidget over the etched designs — flowers and the sun — in the wood of the box. He’d be here for her.  
  
“This… is my vice.”  
  
She opened the box in one smooth motion, setting the lid back like one would rip off a scab. Despite himself, Vasyasa leaned closer. Inside was a pipe, a pouch of something musky-smelling, and a bundle of matches. “Wash-weed, it’s called. I have it imported from the west.”  
  
“It’s... a drug?” He’d never thought of her as one to indulge, but being an absolute ruler had to be stressful at the best of times. He couldn’t blame her. If it was a relaxant, that was.  
  
“Yeah.” She let out a shuddering sigh. “I haven’t touched it in years, it’s how only Ravir knows, but… Vas… I just can’t tonight.”  
  
Feeling bold, he reached out and covered her shaking hand with his larger one, and met her eyes when she looked at him. “Ruhana—” Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t protest, so he continued. “I understand. You don’t need to explain anything to me, you know. If this ‘wash-weed’ is helping you, then please, take it. It calms you, yeah?”  
  
She nodded, some of her old composure coming back. “Pain-reliever, too. Not as powerful as some of the things that grow here, but less side effects. Listen, Vas. You can’t let anyone know. If my sister is back I can expect an attempt at a coup, and I need to stay in the people’s good graces.”  
  
He nodded seriously and withdrew his hand, leaning back against the headboard while Ruhana pressed a pinch of the weed into the pipe and lit it. She took a drag and let it out, her whole body relaxing.  
  
She was beautiful, his queen, and he was so very lucky. He could hold onto this secret for her, hold it close to his heart. Thus he vowed as the heady smoke reached his nose and set his eyes to drooping. He slid back under the sheets and closed his eyes, too tired to keep his head up.  
  
Beside him, Arambh’s Queen took one last pull. She tucked everything away again, and, returning to bed, planted a kiss to his temple. She snuggled up against his back, flinging one arm over his side possessively, and intertwined her fingers with his.  
  
He didn’t mind.


	6. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumultuous times.

There was nothing for it. The wash-weed would help her cope, but it was still a drug, and she had to be alert and in control to convince Gavin’s entourage that the attempt at his life was not her fault, or worse, her doing. Right now, she needed to calm their nerves more than her own.  
  
She managed to slip away the third day, after the council-advisors (she  _still_  didn’t understand how they had so much influence over the running of the country; they were a bunch of squabblers and power-grabbers) had stopped threatening war. She was glad, at least, that none of her own people took them seriously, and that Ravir wasn’t back yet, as promising a return to a centuries-long feud in the very country you’ve warred with was not a good idea. Ravir would have torn them apart the instant they threatened his queen, but in Arambh advisors had no real power to make decisions of that kind, and as the  _real_  King was still unconscious (though recovering), her court thought their posturing was mere words.  
  
Ruhana knew better. She had observed how Gavin acted around the four councilors he had brought with him, and found he lent an ear to their word far more than she would have done with anyone but her own consorts — and even then, Ravir and Vas didn’t profess to know as much on such a variety of subjects as those men did.  
  
Gavin was getting better, at least. Not yet awake, or at least not aware; he’d woken several times according to the reports, in a fever-haze, and she had seen it herself once when she tore herself away to observe his condition herself. His eyes, blue but strangely clouded, wide open and flicking about, but without aim. Then he started the shakes, and the healers swooped in. Standing off to the side, Matthew’s eyes boring into the back of her skull, him looking even more angry and helpless than she felt, she realized she was out of place in her own palace. The war-touched guard wasn’t helping, but he looked ready to collapse so she let it go.  
  
The next day, two days and a night without sleep, he  _had_  collapsed.  
  
Now, on the third day, haughty ‘advising’ westerners fading from her mind, Ruhana’s feet carried her down a tree-shaded path in the garden. The orange trees smelled so wonderful this time of year, blossoms waving gently in the light wind, and Ruhana stopped to lift her nose to one. The orange harvest would be plentiful this year, she thought.  
  
Her feet carried her down the familiar path to the central fountain. She stopped, still half in the shade, to scan the walls. The watch had doubled under her order until Ravir was back (or his fate was known, but she didn’t say that) and she counted a dozen guards on that single stretch of wall, and more surrounding, at every entrance, even the ‘secret’ ones.  
  
Content her safety was not in danger, she approached the fountain — a grand luxury in this region’s climate — and perched herself on the edge, facing out to stare at the place where Gavin had fallen. There wasn’t any blood there, not anymore since the servants had come and scrubbed it clean, but she thought she could still hear him gasping for breath under the sound of the fountain, if she listened hard.  
  
Behind her, water trickled down the petals of the lotus, symbol of rebirth.


	7. Déjà Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A king wakes after an attempt on his life.

Gavin had woken several times over the three days he fought off the poison, according to the bright-eyed, mousy assistant healer who was watching over him for the night when he woke fully, gasping and sweaty. Gavin found this hard to believe, if merely for the fact that he didn't remember any of it. But the little Arambhi woman was hardly deceitful-looking. In fact, she fell over herself to sit him up and bring him water and some bland oatmeal. It wasn't exactly a feast, she said apologetically, but she explained that the healers hadn't been able to feed him in his fever-haze and richer food would upset his stomach. Better to reintroduce him gradually. He knew the concept — starving men being rescued from the wilderness and dying from the bloat shortly after they thought they were safe — but it was weird being part of the wisdom.  
  
“Matthew?” he croaked after a sip of water, realizing who was missing. He'd expect the guard to be hovering over him by now, clucking like a hen, but he wasn't.  
  
The little healer's face fell, and Gavin feared the worst until she said, “he's in the next room over. He refused to sleep, and ate very little, and collapsed this morning. Heat exhaustion, as well. Here, let me wake the senior healer, and he will have a look at you.” She trotted from the room, leaving the door open so he could see her poke her head into the room opposite. “Sir,” she called. “His Majesty is awake.”  
  
Being a senior healer must have made the man a light sleeper, for almost immediately the doorframe was wrenched from her hand and a wide-eyed, wild-haired man stood there, looming over the girl in his nightshirt. “Mesvati!” he barked. “What are you—” He glanced up, saw Gavin sitting up and staring at him, and backed down. “I’ll be right there,” he bit out to the little assistant, and disappeared into the room again.  
  
Mesvati stood there after the door slammed in her face, hands clenched into fists. She was still standing there frozen when her master reappeared not a minute later, and he shoved her roughly out of the way as he swooped, now fully dressed, into the sickbay.  
  
“My lord, don’t try to move too much. The wound has not been healing well due to the poison. Most of it should have passed out of you by now, but this variety lingers, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. Girl! Why is he sitting up? I told you, he’ll get lightheaded!”  
  
“I’m not lightheaded,” Gavin growled. And he wasn’t. He actually felt fine, except for the stretch of the skin on his back when he moved. The worst of it was this condescending healer.  
  
He’d survived assassination attempts before. None of them in a foreign country, of course, and for a moment he reflected on poor Queen Ruhana. He knew his advisors would likely be warmongering even now, and he just hoped she could avoid a return to the feud. He didn’t for a second believe she was in on the plot; Arambh had been hit just as badly by the war and even the well-loved Queen would probably have a revolution on her hands if it continued. Besides, he was good at reading people. The surprise on her and Ravir’s faces just before the knife struck and Gavin’s back exploded in pain was real.  
  
So it wasn’t her. But he knew better than to think the assassination attempt was solely about him, either.


	8. Bygones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh how times have changed.

Ruhana lay awake on the fourth night after the assassination attempt, listening to Vasyasa’s soft snores to her right and the breeze ruffling the curtains to her left. Her thoughts whirred ‘round and ‘round her head, darting off on tangents but coming back to the same theme — how her world had changed.  
  
She remembered all the times she had tried to emulate her elder sister, even when she herself was an adult and Jalenashi beginning to sour. In her youth, her sister was a legendary figure, already a shrewd strategist by the time Ruhana, five years the younger, was struggling to learn her letters. If she had not been High Princess, surely she would have been made a general. But that keen eye for maneuvers both in the court and on the battlefield was now the very thing that kept Jalenashi uncaught as an enemy of the state.  
  
As for her, little second princess Ruhana never expected to become Queen. Even as she and Jalenashi duked out their claims to the throne, she rarely truly expected to  _win_. But her hand was forced by a more primal instinct that power-greed: Jalenashi had made it very clear that any threat to her was to be eliminated.  
  
She’d never wanted this. But she would deal with what the gods gave her. It was all anyone could do.  
  
A rapping came at the door, and Ruhana sat up, disregarding her bare breasts in the moonlight. No assassin would knock, and no one else would dare to enter without her explicit word. “Speak,” she ordered, running a hand through her hair before tying it back with a gold cord lying on her nightstand. If someone was interrupting her at night, it was probably news that required her to leave the chambers anyway. Might as well start early. Perhaps Gavin’s condition had changed?  
  
It was the voice of one of her usual chamber-guards. “Apologies, Your Grace. The Fallstari king is awake and we have reports that the First Consort just arrived through the Back Gate.”  
  
That had her leaping out of bed, throwing on a silken dress and sliding on her slippers. Vasyasa was sitting up, blinking in the moonlight, but she just pecked him on the cheek and checked herself in the full-length mirror before she was out the door, feet flying down the hall. The guard stood there sheepishly in her dust for a moment before Vasyasa’s scowl had him quietly shutting the door.


	9. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A queen checks up on a king.

Ravir intercepted me as I darted down the stairs to the infirmary. I saw his familiar grin at the bottom of the flight and nearly tripped in my haste to get to him. He knew me as well as I knew myself, sweeping me into a bone-crushing hug as soon as I was close enough, and I wrapped my arms about him in return gladly. He smelled of sweat and rotting earth, but I was already dizzy with glee and could not care.

“Oh, _kanta_ ,” he murmured into my hair. “I am glad to be home.”

“I’m glad too,” I said. It was all I could say. “Come, walk with me. King Gavin is awake. How serendipitous, to receive such news at the same time…”

He smiled at me gently. “Well, _I_ think I need a bath first, yes?” He tugged at the sleeve of his torn and stained guard’s uniform — the very one he had been wearing when he had started the pursuit of the assassin four days before. “I’d hate to see the good king looking like this.”

_Better than I know myself…_ “Very well. Have your report ready when you return.”

“Of course.”

We parted with regrets and not five minutes later I was at the infirmary, striding into the room and right past the senior healer, who tried to head me off. I had no patience for the man, and never did. He was competent at his job, but insufferable besides.

Gavin was sitting up, poking at a bit of oatmeal. A green tinge still lingered over his fair features, but his eyes were clear as they’d ever been. When he had woken before, delirious, the blood rimming his blue irises had startled me, but now he looked up at me and nodded graciously as if nothing had happened.

“Queen Ruhana,” he said, voice hoarse with disuse.

“King Gavin. How are you feeling?” The little assistant — I could not recall her name, but she looked familiar from my visits in recent days — pulled a stool over, squeaking apologies, and I sat down at his bedside.

He winced, saying candidly, “Tired. But much better than I could be, thanks to your healers.”

“You have been through much, and I am sorry that it happened at all. In my own palace no less!” I shook my head. “But my First Consort, Ravir — you’ll remember him, yes? — has just returned from pursuing the man who tried to kill you. I thought it prudent to see you first, but I assure you, I will be taking all necessary steps to ensure the assassin is brought to justice.”

“That is fine,” he said mildly, studying me with such a shrewd look on his face that I had to fight to keep my discomfort from showing outwardly.

I nodded my farewell and left him to his rest, ordering the healers to attend to his every need. I poked my head into the next door down the hall; Matthew slumbered on, oblivious, and I did not wake him.


	10. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A queen’s two consorts.

It was early morning when Vasyasa woke. He wasn’t sure what had ejected him from his formless dreams at first, but as he blinked in the pre-dawn light he realized that Ruhana was gone, and, more importantly, remembered why. It must have been hours since the guard had interrupted their rest to make the dual announcements, but Vasyasa had been allowed to sleep and he was both annoyed at and touched by this.

No matter. He was awake now. Vas put his feet on the marble to the side of the four-poster and stood up, letting the chilly stone force him further from dreamland. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he set about getting ready for the day.

Silks arranged, bangles up and down his arms, rouge applied, and he looked very much the Queen’s consort he was. Growing up the son of the wealthiest war-dealer in the city had made him used to comfort, but he had lived through his father’s rage when the Emerald Agreement dried up business, too. He thought this made him more aware of the adverse consequences of even the most clear-cut decisions the Queen could make. While he would never measure up to Ravir’s worldliness — the Watwanyasan man had been all over the country, and even to the West, both before he knew Ruhana and at her behest, and had known true poverty besides — he was no coddled noble’s son. No one would think he was anything else, though, dressed in the silks and jewels, and that was how he liked it. He had learned from Ravir that the enemy that underestimated him was the enemy easiest to defeat.

He checked the throne room first, but Ruhana was not within. Instead, he found Ravir lounging on the dais, leaning back against the side of the empty gold seat. The other consort had quill in his hand, and as Vasyasa began to cross the large room, Ravir leaned forward and scratched something on a roll of parchment lying on the floor nearby. An inkwell sat next to the parchment.

_Working on his letters again?_ Vas thought. He left the area rug behind and stepped out onto the stone that dominated the hall, sandals treading as quietly as possible, as Ravir had taught him. Nevertheless, his footsteps echoed, and Ravir glanced up, finding him immediately despite the acoustics of the room making his location difficult to pinpoint from sound alone.

It was just the two of them in the hall, Ravir doubtlessly having sent the ever-present guards away to wherever the Queen was.

“Morning,” Ravir said. He glanced at the parchment, a frown tugging at his lips, and abruptly rolled it up. “Bah! I’m getting nowhere.”

“Letters?” Vas settled at the foot of the throne, glancing sidelong at Ravir but not looking directly at him.

Ravir sighed. “Yeah. Ruhana’s off in a meeting and wanted me to come, but the day I can stand those Fallstari advisors is the day Arambh freezes over, so now I’m just waiting. Figured it’d pass the time, but…” He waved the roll about in frustration. “I guess it’s not to be.”

“Eh, who knows,” Vas mumbled lamely; the subject of Ravir’s education — or lack thereof — was awkward for him. Ravir was determined to learn what he’d missed growing up in the Brushback, but Vas still found himself in the rare position of knowing something Ravir did not.

Ravir was silent for a moment while Vas stared down the hall to the double-doored entrance. “The assassin is down in the Pens,” he said eventually.

Vas shuddered. _The Pens? Gods._ “You got him?”

“Of course. Coward like that… well.”

“I’ll have to hear that story. How far did he get?” He twisted himself to face Ravir, but the other consort wasn’t looking at him. His head was tilted back and he was tossing a small knitted ball from hand to hand.

Ravir did not open his eyes, but the ball flew neatly back and forth. “Nearly to Lalit. Stuck himself in the muskeg.”

_Muskeg_ … Vas had long since learned what Ravir’s strange vocabulary translated into, but on occasion it still threw him when he was talking with barely an accent one minute and using his Brushback terms the next. “That’s a way, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. He got a bit of a head start and was running on fear the entire time, but I caught up to him easily enough. Just had to follow the trail of snapped twigs and blood — he cut himself in the thicket outside the city, but I don’t think he even felt it.” The ball stilled its arc and Ravir opened his eyes. “I toyed with him, yeah. Let him get a bit farther than I could have, but he was never going anywhere. He expected to die by my hand.”

Vas snorted and shook his head. “Fool. If he thought you would kill him without interrogating him first…”

Ravir hummed in agreement; the ball resumed flight. “Yes, well, I’ll be down to the Pens soon enough. Give him some time to stew first.”

“I’ll never understand how you can enjoy doing that, but I’m glad you do, in any case.”

Ravir tilted his head towards Vas. “I don’t quite get it either,” he murmured.


End file.
